Calls Handled Per Hour As A Yardstick In Agent Performance Evaluation

[Carrigman]

In our inbound centre we have traditionally evaulated agents under three main headings: Quality, Quantity, and Attendance (incorporating Adherence and Absenteeism).

I am uncomfortable with Quantity (calls per hour, AHT, percentage wrap, etc) however as it is something agents cannot control whereas Quality, Adherence, and Absenteeism are.

I would be interested in hearing from anyone who made the move away from using quantitative stats in performance evaluation and concentrated on qualitative and adherence/absenteeism instead. Did it work? Were there pitfalls I should be conscious of?

Regards,

John,
Ireland

[JobGone2India]

We moved away from quantity stats to measure performance several months ago. The plus side is that advisors feel under less pressure and are, therefore, happier in general.

However, there is a down side. Your call forecast/staffing levels will use quantity figures to arrive at the number of calls you can handle/staff you need. If you totally abandon quantity as an indication of advisors performance there is a danger that your planning assumptions will bear no resemblance to the actual performance.

We decided to keep the CPH measure in "as a guideline" to advisor performance. CPH is a combination of AHT , wrap etc. and, certainly in our business, is something that advisors can affect through good call handling technique, while still providing quality service.

[atlantic group]

Qualitative measurements have the inherent problem of what quality professionals call Gage R&R which means your measurements must be reproducible and repeatable. Most qualitative measurements are too subjective to have these characteristics. Therefore they cannot be used to accurately measure performance or, most importantly, measure continual improvement which is required for COPC or ISO 9000 certification The mantra is, "If you can't measure it, you can't control it."

[OPsMan]

I beleive a blend of both is required. What you want to do is hold your reps accountable for AHT etc. which allows you to measure their productivity. You mention that these are not controllable by the agent and I have to disagree. Call Handling, Control, Multitaksing and efficiency are all measure from AHT. You should measure them on Idle time as well, another metric they can control.

Quality is the key fundemental that will separate your business from others. We can all take calls efficivently, however, quality work is more challenging. First Call Resolution should be considered as well. Are your Reps maximizing the customers expirience by solving all their issues in one call?

Schedule Adherence and Absenteeism are definite measures. How can you run your center if the people are not in the right place at the right time?

I hold my reps accountable for quantative as well as qualititative metrics and I bet your boss holds you accountable for these as well....

[NBosch]

Quantitive measures are inevitable for your forecast and scheduling means, however, to judge your agents on, they can be pretty tricky.
At the moment I work with only one quantitive target, and that is Fair Share of Calls, which means, that I expect all agents, to handle the same ammount of calls over a certain period of time (2 weeks ).

This FSOC is then compared to my statistics that combine agent status (rookie, experienced etc. ) with historical data to judge if an agent is performing as expected or if he/she needs additional training.

The other target is Workduration ( %incoming+%outgoing+%available ) to see if an agent is spending his time doing his job or not.

Because both measurements contain a certain level of "fairness towards your peers", the agents can relate to them and are willing to put extra effort in their jobs.

[felix]

Although I do agree that agent is not responsible for some quantitative metrics, there are some other indicators tied directly to numbers that are under agent control as said on the thread.

Indicators such as AHT, ready/on call time are indicators for which agent has full control.

I really don't believe that an agent could be accountable for daily call flow and things such as service levels and abandon rates, since these are more of a responsabiliy for the workforce management team.

[n_meghanath]

What would an agent understand when he is told that he would be evaluated? He would see if he is handling the call within x sec, if he is able to adhered to his or her x break, if he is login for the whole x hrs, if he is able to give x % of FTR, if he is able to answered x no of calls in a day, x no of days present in a month, x% in quality, x% in customer satisfaction and so on.

Now if an agent Y is able to achieve all x parameters then he has given quality, quantity and attendance. If x is worked out properly and a perfect forecast then there wonÂ’t be any issue, but in actual scenario sometimes the forecast canÂ’t be accurate all the time which might result in variance of target from time to time. But at the end of the day for everything there would always be a reason and the reason could be due to forecast error, system downtime, unpredictable call flow etc. and there would also be reason where the agents are accountable. So that is where they should be evaluated for opportunity areas. It could either be for quality, quantity or attendance.

Cheers